


a little further

by gendzl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming Out, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Second Chances, but after that we really go off the rails., but then it gets better!, poemfic (like a songfic except it's e.e. cummings), the first chapter is canon compliant in that you cannot prove it DIDN'T happen..., there's a bit that looks a lot like suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:42:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23452669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendzl/pseuds/gendzl
Summary: A series of moments during the war. An ending that's not quite an ending.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 28
Kudos: 51





	1. XLVIII

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this fic was finished, and then it spawned another 3 chapters. Oops?
> 
> I've removed a few lines (at minimum) of each e.e. cummings poem in this fic, per AO3's guidelines regarding the use of copyrighted works. I'll be providing links to the poems as e.e. cummings intended them to be read for those of you who are interested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [XLVIII](https://slatternly.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/top-five-poems/), around which this chapter is written, was published in 1931. Feel free to make yourself sad, as I did, by imagining that one or the other of them read it before going off to war.
> 
> Cursory historical context for this chapter: 
> 
> Many, _many_ gay men and women joined up during the war. A large number of them deliberately concealed their identities, others weren't asked the question directly and felt no need to volunteer the information, still others had never before considered the possibility, and, in some instances, there were those who simply hadn't encountered the term "homosexual" before and assumed they didn't 'have' it. 
> 
> Those who were rejected on the basis of sexuality—in particular the ones who self-declared at the draft board—had the reasoning for their rejection stated quite explicitly in their official draft record (though some sympathetic examiners left it vague), which could be seen by potential employers. Being publicly "out" in the 1940s was no walk in the park, and choosing to do anything but lie through their teeth wasn't a decision to be made lightly.
> 
> An excellent resource on this topic is Allan Bérubé's book _Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two._

* * *

_come a little further—why be afraid—_

"Homosexuals are not permitted to serve in the military," Bucky said once before the draft, idly, his loose body language and the fact that they were currently wrapped up in bed with each other making clear this was some kind of offer. "I could—"

An _offer_. Steve lifted his head off Bucky's shoulder and looked him in the eye from a distance of fuck-off close. "Don't you dare."

An arm tightened around his waist in apology. He added a verbal "Sorry" for good measure a few tense minutes later.

What a terrible way that would be to try and save someone you love from war—ask that they ruin their future instead.

_here's the earliest star(have you a wish?)_

"Do you ever think about after?" Steve asked.

"You mean, going home?"

"Mhmm."

"Home isn't…" Bucky shifted beside him in the dark, one long line of heat against his side, a sharp contrast to the relentless stab of cold everywhere else—from the frozen dirt beneath them to the icy winter air above. He sighed. "Home stopped being a place for me a long time ago, Steve."

"Oh?"

"You're the only home I've got, these days."

A hand nudged Steve's beneath the blanket. He gripped it tightly. "Yeah."

_touch me_ _  
before we perish_

War is harrowing. War is hell. War is intolerable, and yet they are forced to tolerate it, shattered body and weary soul bending until they either break or find a way to reinforce themselves, shore themselves up, dig in their heels and keep pushing inexorably forward. They've always been each other's reason for getting up in the morning. In that way, war was no different.

"My life didn't flash before my eyes, you know."

Steve found him every night, on watch. Men from the 107th on either side, too far to see them huddled together on the cold ground, but not far enough that whispering couldn't still get them caught out.

They spoke anyway.

"What?"

"When I was strapped to that table. Johnny down the block from us said once that when you have a near death experience, you see your life flash before your eyes."

"You didn't?"

Bucky shook his head. "No."

The minutes passed silently: Steve not daring to ask what he saw, Bucky not daring to tell him.

Grief, should it come, would not be an option for either of them. Not really. The war wasn't conducive to that kind of time or emotion, even if they didn't have to hide the rest of what they were to each other.

_kiss me a little:_ _  
the air  
darkens and is alive—_

The first time they fucked during the war—like many of the times that came after—was a hurried mess of a thing; not enough preparation, muffled groans against still-clothed skin, motions jerky and efficient for fear of being discovered.

"One day, we'll be doing this in a bed again, I swear to G-d, Stevie," Bucky said once, face pressed up between Steve's shoulder blades where he was shoved chest-first into a much abused tree trunk. "We'll do this right at least one more time. I refuse to let either of us die knowing the last time I fucked you was up against a goddamned tree."

Steve let out a groan that landed halfway between aroused and pissed off. " _ **I**_ swear to G-d, if you don't _finish_ fucking me against this tree, you won't live long enough to get me back in that bed you keep promising."

_o live with me in the fewness of_ _  
these colors,_

Bucky knew that Steve had thought, towards the beginning of it all, that maybe this wasn't the same thing for both of them.

That Steve was the only one who felt this way, and Bucky simply thought of him as a convenience.

(Funny. A _convenience_ , like this wouldn't have gotten them both arrested then, or shipped home now.)

But words were hard for him to find before, and they became even more difficult to disclose in the middle of an endless fucking forest during the war. If not an issue of privacy, then an issue of time.

He'd make time, if he had to. The doubts behind Steve's eyes started to feel worse than the consequence of addressing them at the wrong moment. This was war: there would be no right moment, only a series of wrong ones becoming missed opportunities as they passed.

So he grasped Steve's forearm one night, crouched beside his shallow foxhole longer than he ought to. He looked him in the eye and said, clear but quiet, "Get some sleep. I love you."

_alone who slightly_ _  
always are beyond the reach of death_

When Bucky fell from the train, all he could see was Steve.


	2. i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't expecting this fic to continue, but here we are. Shout out to the one (1) person who hit the Subscribe button on a fic marked complete; I wish I had your prescience. 
> 
> [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/49493/i-carry-your-heart-with-mei-carry-it-in)

* * *

_i carry your heart with me(i carry it in  
my heart_

He woke up (he'd never expected to wake up) and not only was he still alone—not only was the love of his life _still dead_ —but Steve was separated from his memory by six decades.

And nobody knew.

Nobody had known back then, either, but this was different: a fettered silence. People like him, like _them_ , were open about it here. (He couldn't stop thinking about it as a 'here' rather than a 'now') Were out. Were together, and in many cases married. They weren't generally chased out of their own bars by cops these days, either.

Everything they had been to each other weighed all the more heavily with so much time and social progress.

_i am never without it(anywhere  
i go you go, my dear)_

He dragged Bucky's memory with him into the future, worried he'd forget him in the same way everyone else had done. Resigned to a footnote in history, the best friend of the greatest soldier the world had ever known.

Bullshit.

Steve was nothing without Bucky.

_i fear  
_ _no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)_

He got reckless. Passively suicidal. Do good while he was living, yes, save as many people as possible, yes. Worry about coming out alive on the other side of those heroics? Not so much.

He threw himself into the job they'd given him with no regard for his own safety because what the hell was life—

_i want  
no world(for beautiful you are my world)_

—(especially this life, in this world, where he knows no one and is familiar with nothing and is still owned by a government he'd lost all trust in) except time spent waiting to get back to Bucky?

_and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant_

It takes eight months before he wakes up to find that the weight of his grief has let up slightly. He can breathe a little deeper and it hurts a little less.

The trapped feeling starts to dissipate, and he takes a few steps back from his life to consider what it might mean to go on with any real intent to survive it.

_here is the deepest secret nobody knows_

He doesn't call a press conference. He calls Pepper, who makes some discreet inquiries and connects him with someone appropriate. Someone he can sit down with. He decides on an article, not a television interview, because he'll find this easier to say if he can pretend he's saying it to just one person.

It takes four hours of conversation, most of a pack of tissues, and numerous rounds of edits to get right, but they _do_ get it right:

On the second anniversary of Steve coming out of the ice, he renders the world speechless with several thousand words that thoroughly correct history and which begin, quite simply, _I sat down with Steve Rogers, partner of the late Sergeant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes of the 107 th,_

_and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart_

His shield is suddenly everywhere. On pride flags and protest signs, pinback buttons and bumper stickers.

Quotes from his interview appear on talk shows, in much revised history books, in theses and syllabi across the country. The insignia for the 107th is declared too hideous to use for anything, which Steve thinks is fair.

Someone tracks down Bucky's service record and suddenly Steve is seeing his goddamned signature everywhere he turns.

Steve left asthma behind in the '40s, but sometimes when he thinks about this, his chest gets so full he can hardly breathe.

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)_

Home is still a person who no longer exists, but living in the future grows a little easier. Steve no longer feels the burden of being the sole person honoring the truth of Bucky's memory, though he deems it a privilege to be the one who remembers best.

Life goes on, and he goes with it.

Almost a year later, a stranger loses his mask and the extra heart Steve carries in his chest rises up in his throat.


End file.
